From the Acid House scene of the late 1980s, the scene transformed from predominantly a London-based phenomenon to a UK-wide mainstream underground youth movement. By 1991, organisations such as Fantazia, Universe, Raindance, and Amnesia House were holding massive legal raves in fields and warehouses around the country. One Fantazia party, called One Step Beyond, was an open-air, all-night affair that attracted 30,000 people. Other notable events included Vision at Pophams airfield in August 1992, with 40,000 in attendance and Universe's Tribal Gathering in 1993.
In the early 1990s, the scene was slowly changing, with local councils passing by-laws and increasing fees in an effort to prevent or discourage rave organisations from acquiring necessary licenses. This meant that the days of legal one-off parties were numbered. By the mid-90s, the scene had fragmented into many different styles of dance music, making large parties more expensive to set up and more difficult to promote. The happy old skool style was replaced by the darker jungle and the faster happy hardcore. Although many ravers left the scene due to the split, promoters such as ESP Dreamscape and Helter Skelter still enjoyed widespread popularity and capacity attendances with multi-arena events catering to the various genres. Particularly notable events of this period included ESP's Dreamscape 20 on 9 September 1995 at Brafield aerodrome fields, Northants and Helter Skelter's Energy 97 event on 9 Aug 1997 at Turweston Aerodrome, Northants.
The illegal free party scene also reached its zenith for that time after a particularly large festival, when many individual sound systems such as Bedlam, Circus Warp, DIY, and Spiral Tribe set up near Castlemorton Common. In May 1992, the government acted. Under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, the definition of music played at a rave was given as:
"music" includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.Sections 63, 64 & 65 of the Act targeted electronic dance music played at raves. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act empowered police to stop a rave in the open air when a hundred or more people are attending, or where two or more are making preparations for a rave. Section 65 allows any uniformed constable who believes a person is on their way to a rave within a five-mile radius to stop them and direct them away from the area; non-compliant citizens may be subject to a maximum fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale (£1000). The Act was officially introduced because of the noise and disruption caused by all night parties to nearby residents, and to protect the countryside. However, it has also been claimed that it was introduced to kill a popular youth movement that was taking many drinkers out of town centres, where they would drink taxable alcohol, and into fields to take untaxed recreational drugs.
–Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994[9]
After 1993, the main outlet for raves in the UK were a number of licensed venues, amongst them Helter Skelter, Life at Bowlers (Trafford Park, Manchester), The Edge (formerly the Eclipse [Coventry]), The Sanctuary (Milton Keynes) and Club Kinetic.[10]. In London, itself, there were a few large clubs that staged raves on a regular basis, most notably "The Laser Dome", "The Fridge", "The Hippodrome", "Club U.K.", and "Trades." "The Laser Dome" featured two separate dance areas, "Hardcore" and "Garage", as well as over 20 video game machines, a silent-movie screening lounge, replicas of the "Statue of Liberty", "San Francisco Bridge", and a large glass maze. At capacity "The Laser Dome" held in excess of 6,000 people. Events proved to be one of the main forces in rave, holding legendary events across the north-east and Scotland. Initially playing Techno, Breakbeat, Rave and drum and bass, it later embraced hardcore techno including happy hardcore and bouncy techno. Judgement Day, History of Dance, and now REGENeration continued the Rezerection legacy. Scotland's clubs, such as the FUBAR in Stirling, Hanger 13 in Ayr, and Nosebleed in Rosyth played important roles in the development of these dance music styles.
These were nearly all pay-to-enter events; however, it could be argued that rave organisers saw the writing on the wall and moved towards more organised and "legitimate" venues, enabling a continuation of large-scale indoor raves well into the mid-nineties. One might remember that the earliest house and acid house clubs were themselves effectively "nightclubs". Public perception of raves was also overshadowed in the press by the 1995 death of Leah Betts, a teenager who died after taking ecstasy; journalists and billboard campaigns focussed on drug use, despite Betts cause of death being water intoxication in her home, not an ecstasy overdose at a rave.
Genuine illegal raves have continued throughout the UK to this day and unlicensed parties have been organised in venues including disused quarries, warehouses, and condemned night clubs. The rise of the Internet has both helped and hindered the cause, with much wider and more accessible communication resulting in bigger parties, but consequently increasing the risk of police involvement.[11]
The 2006 M.I.A. song "XR2" is an ode to the rave scene of early 1990s London.
There are also types of Rave clothes, like 'Shutter Shades', 'pumps', 'Three button Shrits', 'Fluorescent Yellow Jackets','White Gloves' and White belts this is known as 'Rave gear'. (Britain only)!
As well as clothing there were a range of accessories carried by many ravers including: Vicks Vapour Inhalers and Rub, which heightened the sensations when using Ecstasy, Pacifiers (babies dummies) to satisfy the need to chew caused by taking Ecstasy and glow sticks which were used whist dancing to entertain other drug users. This led some clubs and event organisers to search participants on entry and confiscate such items due to it being evidence of drug use inside the venue.
In the early 2000s illegal parties still existed, albeit on smaller scales, and the number of sanctioned events seemed to be on the rise. The few constants in the scene include amplified electronic dance music, a vibrant social network built on the ethos of the acronym PLUR, "Peace, Love, Unity, Respect", percussive music and free-form dancing often accompanied by the use of drugs such as ecstasy, methamphetamine, speed and ketamine. However, increased cocaine usage, preponderance of adulterated ecstasy tablets and organised criminal activity has been detrimental to UK-based rave culture, although free parties are now on the rise again.
According to some long-time observers, rave music and its subculture began to stagnate by the end of the 1990s. The period of grass-roots innovation and explosive growth and evolution was over; the flurry of passionate activity and the sense of international community were fading.
By the early 2000s, the terms "rave" and "raver" had fallen out of favour among many people in the electronic dance music community, particularly in Europe.[citation needed] Many Europeans[who?] returned to identifying themselves as "Clubbers" rather than Ravers.[citation needed] It became unfashionable among many electronic dance music aficionados to describe a party as a "rave," perhaps because the term had become overused and corrupted.[citation needed] Some communities preferred the term "festival," while others simply referred to "parties." True raves,[clarification needed] such as "Mayday," continued to occur for a time in Central Europe, with less constrictive laws allowing raves to continue in some countries long after the death of rave in the United Kingdom. Moreover, traditional rave paraphernalia, such as face-masks, pacifiers, and glow-sticks ceased to be popular. Underground sound systems started organising large free parties and called them Teknivals.
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